Untitled
by hawkable
Summary: Junzula fic that's untitled for now. Takes place about four years after the series end and is part of a larger Tyzula fic that will be coming within the next few months. M rating for later scenes. Thanks to anamazingname for helping me plot this and the accompanying fic and edit.
1. Chapter 1

Azula rested against the cool stone of the wall hungry, cold, and worst of all, bored. Senlin fall was unseasonably cold and she was ill prepared for it. The princess shifted and adjusted the sleeves of the thin cotton tunic she'd traded her silks in for. Just touching the unsophisticated material made her nauseated. All those years of tutors and grooming at her father's side, and for what? Lurking in an Earth Kingdom alley with no money?

Her past few years living with Iroh hadn't been wholly miserable, but they had been profoundly annoying. He had forced to limit her fire bending to meditation and 'sanctioned' hours that would make the laziest bender arch a brow in judgment, and her immediate financial state was just another reflection of her overall failure in life. She had her own finances well and settled, but accessing any credit to her estate or using an Imperial seal was bound to draw nothing but trouble to her. Zuko would come air ballooning to her 'rescue', assuring her she should go back to stay with Iroh in Ba Sing Se.

Even time back in her gilded cage sounded better than that. She'd had enough serving tea to gaping old men and up jumped dirt royalty. A lord of the mud was still beneath the lowest Fire Nation peasant no matter what her Uncle tried to convince her.

If she gave her brother more credit, she'd assume he spent private moments gloating. Unfortunately, he was far more like their father… He was likely locked away brooding and pensive than celebrating his success. His little continued adventures with the Avatar and his accompanying gang of misfits was likely the only spark in his life. He certainly hadn't been properly trained to handle the demands of being Fire Lord. And running off only proved he didn't take it seriously. She pursed her lips and realized she too had run away… twice now.

The parallels between her brother's storybook transformative time in the Earth Kingdom and her own were beginning to surface and it was annoying her. She sighed and crossed her arms, skin pouring out heat. It was a fun way to keep warm and something she'd perfected on her 'holiday' after Zuko had ascended to the throne in her stead. If nothing else, it had ensured nurses and healers kept their hands to themselves.

"Nice trick, little girl."

Azula straightened and turned to regard the voice addressing her. She arched a brow and analyzed the woman who had spoken. Possible Fire Nation by her coloring and a fighter of some kind judging from the way she dressed and the whip at her hip. She doubted a circus performer would be so plain clothed so that left thug. The princess huffed softly and shot the woman a blank look.

"Ooh," the woman mused. "Such an icy thing for a fire bender." A faint smirk split the woman's lips.

Azula tensed, clearing the pathways in her arm, regulating the heat that had been flowing from them. "I'm afraid you're as mistaken as your conversation is unwanted."

The woman chuckled and shook her head. "Listen to that tone. You were steaming, honey." She shrugged. "Not the best undercover fire bender I've met but you're all so hot headed I'm surprised any of you can think a sentence through."

Azula frowned and the continued familiar tone and banter.

"Come on, princess. You must be pretty cold to be putting off heat like that in a backwater place like this. They even think they see fire here and you've got a whole bunch of idiots on your tail."

Azula's eyes flashed at the title. It could be typical condescension, but if the woman was as Fire Nation as she appeared, there might be a reason behind the address. Only people in the capital saw her or Zuko in person and it was rare for citizens of Caldera to leave, or even want to, unless it was for government promotion or military service. Most of the soldiers that had served on her ship or under her during the war were likely dead too and her father's admiralty imprisoned. That didn't leave many who should be able to note her so easily on sight. She took a step away from the wall, wary and tense. Perhaps the woman was an assassin… a dissenter grunt…

"Here," the woman grunted, tossing a few coins to Azula in response to her continued silence. "Why don't you buy a *coat* so you don't stick out so much." A smile slid into place on the older woman's face as Azula caught the coin easily. "Though with those eyes, I think people are going to remember you."

Azula almost took the comment as a charming compliment when the woman whistled high and sharp and ruined the moment. A large shirshu came lumbering down the alley towards them.

"If you're aren't too delicate, come find me. I can help you make some coin with that bending," the woman called, scaling the beast easily. She winked at Azula and rode the thing away, leaving the princess furious at her presumption and possible insult at offering her what could be an offer to be a fire juggler or prostitute.


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks to Smuggles for editing. 3

Several hours later, Azula found herself considerably warmer and mildly less annoyed as she followed the large imprints the stranger's shirhu had left. There was still a chance that it was a trap or that the offer for work had been a ruse for something else. Though if it had been an ruse to cover bluntly asking if Azula would perform sex work, she assumed the woman would have asked her in a far more lascivious way.

She stopped as the tracks became lost in the ruts of the main street and scowled. 'Come find me' was not a particularly helpful or logical way of getting someone to actually come find you. Though if she could hunt the Avatar at fourteen, certainly she could find a thug in a tiny town like Senlin.

She paced the length of the street until she found several coarse hairs. Perhaps the beast had shaken itself… or not. It was more likely it was some other type of fur but it was the only lead she had. She wandered down the alley she'd found it at and smirked when the tracks reappeared.

They ended rather abruptly in a rather derelict part of the town. The only thing worth noting about the area was a run down four flat with battered shutters instead of windows. Dim yellow light spilled and rowdy cheers spilled out from the cracks in the shutters until a man stumbled out of the door.

Azula frowned and studied the building. Worst case scenario, the place was a brothel and she could simply set fire to it and feel as if she'd done the town some good. If the offer was legitimate however, it could perhaps be interesting inside. She thought she recalled Zuko and Iroh discussing the Avatar's blind friend before she'd left Ba Sing Se. The girl had supposedly made a considerable amount of money in underground bending matches. While she still felt rather disdainful of the Avatar and his friends (particularly the preachy water bender), she found the earth bender less than awful. At least the girl had an enterprising spirit.

The man from earlier shot her a grin and careened towards her. Her hand struck out lazily, palm slamming into the man's temple. He went down almost immediately and the simple exchange was enough to quell any of Azula's last minute nerves about heading inside. She focused on her breathing and strode forward, preparing herself for the possibility of being grabbed or attacked.

The reality of the tavern's interior was far less exciting. It was barely outfitted with more than what appeared to be liquor and gambling tables. A few Earth Kingdom standards were hung about, but they were weathered and torn.

Almost immediately the princess picked out the woman from earlier in the crowds. She was in the center of the main room, somewhat obscured by by several people circled around her. She appeared to be leaning back in her chair, one arm draped over the back. Across from her, a man was hunched over the table, clutching a tile and trembling.

Azula shouldered her way forward through the rabble to get a better view of what was going on. The woman was playing what appeared to be some derivative of mahjong with her opponent and, by the looks of it, drawing it out to tantalize the crowd. Azula settled near a wooden support pillar to watch as the woman grinned at the crowd. Her eyes came to rest almost immediately on the princess, as if she had known Azula had entered.

She shot the princess that same rakish, self-satisfied look she had in the alley and Azula felt unwelcome warmth work up in her neck. She huffed and focused her attention on the man instead with an air of practiced disinterest. As if in answer, June set her own tile down as soon as the man finally set his own down, sending the room into an uproar.

Earth Kingdom notes had passed back and forth in front of and over Azula as she waited for the onlookers to relax and disperse. Surely the shouting, coin tossing, and sloshing of warm, foul smelling liquor had to end at some point. Sooner rather than later if she had her way.

Azula glanced up as the woman whistled and the crowd thinned almost immediately. She sauntered towards the older woman and stopped just an arm's length away, brow arched at the board. "Isn't this a game for old women?"

The woman smirked and polished off the last of whatever she'd been drinking in her cup. "You calling me old?"

Azula shrugged. "You're older than I am. Clearly."

The woman laughed and stood, looking Azula over slowly. "Sassy, huh? Not as bright as you think you are either, but you'll get there in time. " She nodded and set her empty cup on a serving girl's tray as she passed. "My name's June. I'd ask your name, but you're playing the type who doesn't offer it up."

Azula pursed her lips and ignored the pretense of conversation. "You mentioned money co

uld be made. How?"

"Money is made lots of ways," June bantered. She tiled her head towards the back of room and smiled. "Step into my office."

Azula tilted her head to glance past a rather wide set earth bender and studied the door June appeared to be indicating. "Yes," she replied coolly. "I'll just follow you out into the back of this hole. That seems like a smart decision."

June shrugged. "Well you were stupid enough to follow me and step inside. If I was going to do something to you, I think a crowded, noisy gambling hall would be fine enough cover, don't you?"

Azula's jaw tightened.

"See what I mean, princess? Not so bright. "

"if you insist on having something to call me, you may use…" She shifted on her feet. She'd gone by several aliases since leaving Ba Sing Se, not wanting to draw attention to herself. "…Shu."

"Sure thing, beautiful," June replied, making her way towards the back of the room. "Better?"

Azula paused before following, eyes narrowed. "Did you lure me here to do business or flirt?"

"I can't do both?" June stopped near the door and shrugged. "All business then," she continued as Azula maintained her silence. "I dabble in some bending rings. They've always been big here and with the Fire Nation not trying to burn everyone alive and warmongering things have been picking up. People are more cheerful… betting more on fights." June paused to study Azula's reaction. "Oh, look at that frown," she observed.

"It's just my face."

June chuckled. "Maybe it runs in your family."


	3. Chapter 3

Azula felt her stomach turn, though she kept herself steady and her expression bland.

"Do you really think you don't stick out? Even in those clothes?"

Azula huffed and crossed her arms, ignoring June's allusion to her failure to blend in. She didn't have the energy to expend over being furious that she'd managed to pass herself off as a Kyoshi Warrior undetected in the damn capital of the Earth Kingdom but could apparently not pass herself off as a standard expatriate. "So you know my brother," she finally ground out. "I guess that means our business is concluded." Though how June knew Zuko was a question Azula was keen to know the answer to.

June studied Azula for a moment in silence before shaking her head. "These bending matches-"

"Which are illegal, I assume."

"Illegal is a harsh word for it. Strictly speaking, it's not illegal. It's just that the matches get… heated," she paused to smirk at the word choice, apparently pleased with herself. "People get hurt, lose money, get cheated if they aren't paying attention. …The authorities get prickly about those things. They're silly like that."

Azula crossed her arms, considering the tacit offer and June's possible motivations for presenting such a scheme to her when she already knew her identity and her idiot brother. "I see. You don't take me to the secret location of these matches…" She stopped to wave her hand dismissively. "I assume it's all so very clandestine… " She nodded as June shrugged at her. "…Unless I agree to cut you in on my possible winnings or turn the match to the advantage of what you've bet on."

June held up two fingers to the serving girl as she made her way around the room again. "Maybe I don't have anything to offer you since you're not a bender and I'm clearly mistaking you for someone else." She smiled at the princess. "Right?"

Azula scoffed. "If you were right, what's to stop me from finding the locations myself somehow and doing it alone, taking the full cut of whatever pocket change I could win? I would cut out the middle man who has nothing of value to offer."

June kept the smile plastered on her face as Azula continued, looking more bemused than threatened or calculating. She didn't speak again until the girl returned with two cups of what smelled like rice wine and handed them off. "Beyond being offended a little by the implication I'd bring nothing to the table, I'm honestly just amused." She offered Azula one of the cups, still with the stupid, smug look.

Azula stared at the drink, but didn't reach for it. "By what," she asked, waving her hand at the cup. "Stop thrusting that in my face. You can't seriously believe that I'll take some mystery drink from a stranger in this pig's sty."

June proceeded to drain both cups. "Have it your way," she sighed.

Azula's frown deepened. "Amused by *what*," she repeated, this time more forcefully.

"Amused that someone so haughty and obviously Fire Nation, not to mention who you actually are, thinks people in a recovering country would tell them a damn thing about what they eat for dinner, let alone about an underground bending ring half of them probably don't even know about." She stacked the cups inside one another and shook her head. "I'm sure asking around or trying to sneak wouldn't draw any unwanted attention to you either, would it?" June tilted her head at Azula and smirked. "Let me guess… you're not used to having to watch your own back?"

Azula felt an odd flicker of anger before it faded into numbness. "I would never take an unnecessary risk," she replied flatly. "And I have always had to be responsible for myself." She hadn't had a doting Uncle to assuage every biting criticism and flare of temper from her father like Zuko had. That he still likely believed he was the one who'd been emotionally slighted was laughable.

She glanced to the side along with June as someone upended a table, trying to ignore the brief flash of memories. Phantom of blue fire, Dai Li dismissed, and Ty Lee's nimble fingers slamming into her back. It still bothered her that that had hurt a thousand times more than her father's blatant dismissal. Friend watched your back but Ty Lee and Mai had been no true friends. She had well worn, rational arguments and adages she'd repeated to herself for so long after hearing them all her life, but none had been more powerful than the first one she'd ever picked up from her father. "Trust is for fools."

June turned her attention back to Azula and fixed her with a searching look before huffing in amusement. "That's not the worst personal maxim I've ever heard." She rested the door and smiled. "Come on, don't you want to take all that anger banging around inside of you out on some overblown earth bender?"

Azule pressed her lips together, happy to be distracted by the much cheerier prospects of violence and money. "When?"

June's smile broke into a full blown grin. "Follow me."

Azula shook her head, but followed the older woman out of the bar through the door and into the predictably vacant alley it had led to.

"Ever ridden a shirshu?"

"That thing you were riding earlier?"

June stopped and turned, a more serious expression on her face. "Yes, but that thing has a name. And animals aren't things."

"It's not a person either," Azula countered airily. For a moment, she was certain the older woman was going to slap or yell at her. She'd seen the same irritation and confusion on her mother's face many times as a child. Though there had been far more disappointment and disdain laced in Ursa's expression.

Instead June just huffed in disgust and kept walking. "You really are a bratty little princess, aren't you?" She glanced over her shoulder at Azula. "At least you don't lack for spirit."

Azula shrugged. "What fire bender does?"

"Dead ones," the older woman bantered jovially.

Azula tensed and frowned, the expression drifting closer to a pout when June burst into obnoxious laughter.

"Oh, cute."

Azula scowled and was about to cut into June when the shirshu sauntered out from behind several stacks of crates, yawning. "Am I meant to be riding one as well," she asked warily as it almost trotted the rest of the distance to June and nuzzled against her.

"So you don't get out much, do you," June laughed, adjusting the straps to the beast's saddle.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Do you ever actually stop and think about you're about to say?" The woman straightened and leaned against the shirshu.

"I am perfectly groomed and civil… when the situation calls for it."

"And you don't see this as being a situation that might call for you to pretend to be polite?"

Azula shrugged as June gave a soft, exasperated sigh. "Regretting this," the princess inquired.

"Almost. You're riding Nyla, if she'll let you. Ask her."

Azula shot June a dull look, more annoyed than indignant at the ridiculous request. "I'm not asking it."

"Ask her."

The princess's jaw set stubbornly. "No." She suddenly felt like she was dealing with Ty Lee in Ba Sing Se again, repeating no to visiting whatever silly shop she had wanted on their short lived tour of the city. She'd eventually given in, but only after hours of incessant pestering and finally, worst of all, pouting, from the acrobat.

"Then you're free to walk in this brisk night air." She let out a huff of breath to watch it steam for effect. "Just wait until it gets really frosty."

A handful of what felt like minutes passed between the three of them.

Azula hissed in her breath as if by the will of some vengeful spirit, small, icy rain drops began to pepper the street. "Fine," she snapped. "May I ride you, Nyla?"

June smirked as Nyla sneezed and examined the younger woman.

"Well," she ground, crossing her arms.

June clambered up onto the beast and snorted. "Don't be stupid, Nyla can't answer you, she's a shirshu."

Azula glanced up at June, flushed and indignant.

"Come on, beautiful," she laughed, offering her hand. "Swallow your pride and learn to take a joke."

Azula had a nasty response in mind, but suddenly she was getting hauled up behind the woman unceremoniously by the arm instead of gallantly assisted. She grabbed for June's waist as Nyla took off instantly, June's laughter still ringing in her ears.


End file.
